#blogElul 4: ACCEPT

I greet the word, "Accept," with resistance, with a kind of dread. I do not welcome this word into my Shabbat, and yet here it is.

An early morning flash has me seeing Prepare. Act. Bless. Accept. as a set, and I am reminded of a breath meditation made up of four parts: the pause before the inhale, the inhale, the pause before the exhale, and the exhale. In this case:

Pause  Prepare

Inhale  Act

Pause  Bless

Exhale  Accept

I breathe with the words for several sets. "Act" doesn't seem to fit as well as the others. Maybe it is the act of taking a breath?

Next, I add a layer. I name something during prepare (e.g. the pain in my shoulder), I send my breath to it with act, I bless it, and I exhale in acceptance.  It's a practice with some potential, but I don't keep with it. I am easily distracted.

Rabbi Alan Lew says those distractions are exactly what I should give my attention during Elul.* And so I return to the four-part breath, this time with less need to name, with a sense of a wide embrace for what is here in this moment. With each exhalation I relax more and more. I expand and, yes, I accept. 

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Single magnolia blossom

*Rabbi Alan Lew.This is Real and You are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation."   p. 69.

#BlogElul 4 Elul 5773 

#blogElul 3: BLESS

On most mornings, I find a time to recite morning blessings, fifteen brachot from the liturgy. I use the selection, order, and translation from the Reconstructionist prayerbook, Kol HaNeshamah. I don't remember how I went about memorizing them, but once I did, the blessings became portable. I take them on walks, drives, and swims. I accompany them with movement. I put them to all sorts of melodies. I recite them quickly or drawn out to savor every nuance. I play with alternate translations and understandings. This practice has been a mainstay in my life for seven years now, one that I grow into more deeply every day.

Today, I sang the blessings on a rainy walk in my neighborhood, stopping every now and then to enjoy the ripples from raindrops in the puddles.  What a blessing it is to be able to savor the beauty and blessings of each day.

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#BlogElul for 3 Elul 5773 

#blogElul 2: ACT

Act I  

Cooking dinner . Singing a sweet little Woody Guthrie song, wordlessly. Asa standing on his stool, happily making a mess on the counter.  

Wash the greens. Separate them from the stem. Chop the onions. Heat the oil. Check the couscous. Turn down the burner. Prepare the fish. Preheat the oven. 

Move right hand. Grasp the knife. Apply force downward in a slicing motion. Raise the knife and move it over an inch. Apply force downward again . Use the other hand to change the angle of the cutting board. Repeat the knife motions many times.  Put the knife down.

Move to comfort Asa. Retrieve a dropped item. Greet Gabe. Talk with him. Greet James. Talk with him. (Suddenly discover the greens are burned.) Heat beans instead. Put dinner on the table.

Act II

Later in the evening.

Get straight to a complicated task that has required a lot of thought over the last week. Work steadily without distraction. Send out completed work with a sense of satisfaction.

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So many actions of all sizes and types, occurring within different levels of attention. Some deliberate others automatic. 

Grateful for the opportunity to become absorbed in noticing.

#BlogElul for 2 Elul 5773

#blogElul 1: PREPARE

I put the word PREPARE front and center in my mind's eye yesterday evening and returned to it frequently throughout the night and during a morning walk.

Part of me hears it as a stern command. Be diligent. Make lists and plans. Get everything in order.  

And certainly there is plenty to do. Some of it fun and exciting like preparing this blog and beginning to lay out a structure for the sabbatical. Much of it is mundane: groceries, dentist appointments, dishes, laundry. The lists seem to stretch from here to eternity, and I am learning to make my peace with the idea that no matter how organized or prepared I am, I will never get it all done. 

Meanwhile, another part of me hears "Prepare" in the context of Elul, which puts it in a different light: Preparing to enter a holy space and time. Preparing to let go of all the doing, however briefly, and find places of just being. Preparing to notice the spaces in between and listen to the stillness.

And then I know that I am already prepared. I am here in this moment and the next and the next. Nowhere to get to, nothing to do, heneini.

#BlogElul for 1 Elul 5773

Beginnings

Here on Rosh Chodesh Elul, I am beginning what I hope will be a sabbatical journey. My semi-sabbatical from my day job will not begin until at least October, but it feels right to begin this journey with Elul, a month designated as a warm up to the High Holidays, to a new year.

I will start by participating in #BlogElul daily during the month of Elul. BlogElul is the creation of Rabbi Phyllis Sommer at Ima (on and off) the Bima, who offers one-word prompts for each of the 29 days in Elul and invites our response in different formats on-line (see the graphic below.)

 I stumbled upon BlogElul last year and was quite delighted to find a process that I happened to already be engaging in (more on that in a future post). Last year it was all contained in a little journal, but this year I am summoning some courage and intend to publish my daily entries here. 

Journaling Elul in 5773 (2012)

Elul 1: Prepare

Elul 2:  Act

Elul 3: Bless 

Elul 4:  Accept

Elul 5: Know 

Elul 6: Do

Elul 7: Be

Elul 8: Believe

Elul 9: Hear 

Elul 10: See

Elul 11: Count

Elul 12: Trust

Elul 13: Forgive

Elul 14: Remember

Elul 15: Learn

Elul 16: Change

Elul 17: Awaken

Elul 18: Pray

Elul 19: Ask

Elul 20: Judge

Elul 21: Change

Elul 22: Dare

Elul 23: Love

Elul 24: End

Elul 25: Begin

Elul 26: Hope

Elul 27: Intend

Elul 28: Give

Elul 29: Return